The examining the relationships between mindfullness, psychological flexibility, and basic psychological needs and self-compassion of psychological counselors

This study aims to examine the relationships between mindfullness, psychological flexibility, basic psychological needs and self-compassion of psychologial counselors. The sample of the study consists of 324 participants, of which 75.3% female and 24.7% male, ranged in age from 22 to 57, who voluntarily participated in the research. The Personal Information Form, Self-Compassion Scale, Mindfulness Scale, Psychological Flexibility Scale and Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction and Frustration Scales were applied to respondents via online platforms. For the analysis of the data obtained from the research, independent samples t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Kruskal Wallis and Mann Whitney U were used to identify the differences by demographic variables. Pearson and Spearman correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between variables while Hierarchical regression analysis was carried out to determine the variables that predicted self-compassion. Findings showed that psychological counselors' self-compassion differs according to socioeconomic level, but does not differ according to gender, age and marital status. Also, there was a significant difference between the scores of the psychological counselors from the scales of self-compassion, psychological flexibility and basic psychological needs according to their education and supervision status. Another main finding is that the mindfulness scores of the psychological counselors differed significantly according to the institutions they worked for, while there was no difference between their self-compassion, psychological flexibility and basic psychological needs. Although there was no difference between self-compassion, mindfulness and psychological flexibility of psychological counselors whether they chose their profession voluntarily or not, a significant difference was found between their basic psychological needs. As a result of the hierarchical regression analysis, it was found that the subscale of basic psychological needs namely autonomy, relatedness and competence, and the subscale of psychological flexibility namely being present and acceptance significantly predicted self-compassion. The findings of the research were discussed in the context of the relevant literature, and conclusions and recommendations were presented based on these findings.